


Form and Function

by Chantress



Series: And Yet Here We Are [5]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: #GiveGeraltNiceThings2020, Established Relationship, Hand & Finger Kink, Manicures & Pedicures, Multi, Nail Polish, Polyamory, Praise Kink, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Yennefer and Jaskier's Relationship Status Is “In Cahoots With”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress
Summary: Geralt doesn't always take proper care of his hands. His lovers decide to help him with that.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: And Yet Here We Are [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614133
Comments: 26
Kudos: 300





	Form and Function

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely the fault of [this recent tweet by Rahul Kohli](https://twitter.com/RahulKohli13/status/1224502943732379648), the helpful encouragement of [carboncopies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carboncopies), and my abiding thirst for more Soft!Geralt content.

"Witcher training doesn't include anything about the benefits of a proper moisturization routine, does it."  
  
Geralt relishes these times, wrapped up in bed with his lovers after they're all sated on each other, basking in the tingling warmth of afterglow. Jaskier tends to free-associate after a good orgasm or three, saying anything that drifts through his mind, sometimes composing snippets of verse (there are now no less than thirty odes to Geralt's cock alone, and that's only counting the ones the bard has gone back to later and polished into a more coherent form).  
  
Geralt finds it charming. He finds much about Jaskier charming, true, but this habit in particular kindles a fierce tenderness in Geralt's heart every time. Tonight, though, the comment seems to have come from nowhere in particular, even more so than Jaskier's usual post-coital ramblings.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Not that I'm complaining," Jaskier continues. "Far from it. It's just that it's been on my mind lately, and after tonight, what with you lavishing such earnest and extended attention on my, ah, silk purse, I thought I should mention something just in case you were unaware of the general... er," Jaskier gestures vaguely, "...situation."  
  
Geralt frowns. "Jaskier, have you been trying to drink my potions again?"  
  
Yennefer huffs a laugh against the back of Geralt's neck. "He means your hands are rough, Geralt," she says.  
  
His frown deepens. "Oh."  
  
"Like I said, it's the opposite of a problem," Jaskier says, patting one of the appendages in question where it rests on his hip. "I just wondered if maybe you'd like some help with that. I've got my manicure kit right here and everything."  
  
Geralt gives him a suspicious look; Jaskier gazes back guilelessly, blue eyes wide.  
  
"If you're planning to buff away my calluses with that ridiculous little stone of yours--"  
  
"Oh no!" Jaskier says quickly. "Nothing like that. I know how important they are to your livelihood." He holds up his own hands, displaying the hardened pads of his fingers. "Lute player, remember? No, I just want to smooth things down a little, get some moisture into that chapped skin, give your cuticles some love."  
  
Geralt shakes his head. "I'm fine."  
  
He pulls away from Jaskier, although this only serves to press him closer to Yennefer, who's showing no signs of letting Geralt escape the attentions of their determined bard, who's now produced a small case from the drawer of the bedside table and setting out the contents while humming cheerfully to himself.  
  
Geralt casts Yennefer a pleading glance. "Yen, _help_."  
  
She smiles brightly. "An excellent idea," she says, rising from the bed and shimmying into her dressing gown. "I'll fetch some nail polish."  
  
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Geralt yells after her as she goes into the next room to procure more implements of torture.  
  
"Oh hush," Jaskier says. "You'll wake the dead with your howling, and as much as I like the thought of watching you fight wraiths in nothing but your skin, you're not getting out of this so easily."  
  
Jaskier chivvies Geralt into sitting up and putting his hands into Jaskier's care, which Geralt does, but with a low thrum of wariness in his blood, like he's about to enter the lair of an unknown foe. Jaskier already knows his body as intimately as it's possible to; they've had each other in every conceivable way, as well as some Geralt suspects they might have invented themselves. But this feels different--more vulnerable, somehow, than taking Jaskier into his body.  
  
Jaskier seems to understand this, and merely holds Geralt's hands in his own for now, soothing his thumbs over the backs of them.  
  
"They really are beautiful, you know," Jaskier says in a confidential tone.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your hands. Strong, elegant, tender--gods all, but I can't decide sometimes if I'd rather look at them all night long or have you touch me with them."  
  
Yennefer laughs as she slips back into the room and settles behind Geralt once more, bracketing his thighs with her own. "You can always do both," she says. "You're good at multitasking, even when you're half-gone with lust."  
  
Geralt snorts even as he relaxes back into her embrace. "I seem to recall a certain bard who couldn't even remember his own name earlier. Although he did all right with mine."  
  
"Yes, well, extenuating circumstances and all that," Jaskier retorts, letting go of one of Geralt's hands to take up a pair of tiny clippers. "Even when they're trying their best to resemble sandpaper, those hands can reduce the best of us to incoherence."  
  
"They _are_ rather magnificent," Yennefer agrees, a low purr against Geralt's ear as Jaskier begins his assault on Geralt's hangnails. "Made for pleasure. I swear I could come just from your hands alone, the way they whisper over my body like they're exploring the secret heart of the world..."  
  
Geralt groans, alight with embarrassment and desire both, and turns his head to meet her mouth with his own as Jaskier takes up a bit of pumice. The sudden rasp of the stone makes Geralt break away from the kiss, nerves on edge once again, but Jaskier smiles a reassurance up at him, and Yennefer smooths the tension from his shoulders even as Jaskier smooths the rough patches from his hands, both of them still extolling the virtues of every single digit.  
  
Geralt's had many bed partners over the course of his life, but never any who paid such attention to his _hands_ of all things. Oh, he's had plenty of comments about how _deadly_ and _dangerous_ they are, but usually not from anyone he was fucking at the time. A Witcher's hands are for killing, first and foremost; anything more is superfluous. And yet...  
  
And yet hearing his lovers this way, singing the praises of his hands as though their sole function is lovemaking, the giving and receiving of pleasure, cracks open some tender and wanting place inside Geralt; he groans with the enormity of it, both the desire for more and the sudden shock of shame that accompanies that longing.  
  
"It's all right," Yennefer murmurs, stroking his hair. "You can have this. You're allowed."  
  
"More than allowed," Jaskier says, opening a vial and shaking a few drops from it onto Geralt's palms. "At this point, I'd say you're _entitled_ to it."  
  
Geralt hums low in his chest, not trusting his ability to respond with proper words just yet. The liquid Jaskier is rubbing into his skin is surprisingly soothing, with a scent of _rose, citrus, spice_ that he's noticed hovering around Jaskier from time to time. Jaskier grins at his curious head tilt, and doesn't cease the gentle massage even as he explains.  
  
"An emollient. I got the recipe from a priestess of Melitele a while back, actually. No good as lubricant, but lovely for chapped hands, especially in the winter."  
  
Yennefer snorts. "I won't ask how you coaxed the recipe out of her, nor how you know not to use it for lube."  
  
"Probably for the best," Jaskier says, eyes twinkling. "All right, Yen, your turn now," he continues, relinquishing Geralt's hands with a fond pat.  
  
Yennefer switches places with him, and now it's Jaskier cozied up behind Geralt, the beginnings of a renewed erection pressing against the small of Geralt's back. Geralt rolls his hips against it encouragingly; Jaskier hisses in surprise and pleasure and nips Geralt's earlobe in retaliation.  
  
"Tease," Jaskier says fondly.  
  
"You'd know," Geralt says, voice low and lazy.  
  
"Keep still," Yennefer chides them. "If I spill any of this polish because you can't stop grinding on each other for five minutes, you're both sleeping on the floor tonight."  
  
Jaskier makes a pouty, disappointed noise, but subsides, although Geralt notes he doesn't shift his cock away from Geralt's body any.  
  
Yennefer produces two small bottles from the pocket of her dressing gown. "Pending your approval, of course," she says, holding them out to Geralt with a quirk of her eyebrow.  
  
Geralt takes them. One is full of a viscous substance, colored so dark a blue as to appear nearly black in most lights, but with tiny glittering flecks scattered through it like stars in the night sky. The other has a similar consistency, but is a soft, shimmering silver in color.  
  
"You want me to choose?" Geralt says.  
  
"Well, I'd thought I'd use both of them, actually," Yennefer says. "But if you have objections to one or the other..."  
  
That strange _wanting_ feeling is clawing inside Geralt's chest again, almost strong enough to stop his breath. "No," he says slowly, handing the bottles back to her. "They're... they'll do."  
  
"And thank you for such a rousing statement of approval," Yennefer grouses. But her eyes are warm as she uncaps the first bottle, and Geralt thinks she knows all the unspoken words of longing lodged in his throat without him needing to say them out loud.  
  
The dark polish feels cool and strange against Geralt's fingernails as Yennefer brushes it on with smooth, confident strokes that speak of long practice. As she finishes each nail, Yen breathes a few words of Elder Speech against the tip of his finger ("To help it dry, and keep it from chipping," she explains absently), sending warm shivers up Geralt's arm.  
  
By the time Yennefer starts on the silver polish, tracing delicate runes over the top of the miniature starfields on each of Geralt's nails, Geralt is having to use every last scrap of self-control he possesses to keep himself from falling on his lovers in a frenzy of hunger. Jaskier's started circling his hips again, rubbing that lovely cock against the small of Geralt's back despite Yennefer's threat, and Geralt can see the flush of Yennefer's cheeks, _smell_ the musky tang of her renewed arousal, although her hands remain as steady as ever. But somehow Geralt manages to wait until Yennefer has spoken the drying spell over the last of his nails and capped the bottle once more before pulling them close and kissing them breathless.  
  
Jaskier _whimpers_ as Geralt grips his cock, pressing into Geralt's hand with a choked-off curse. Geralt's other hand shifts aside the silk of Yennefer's dressing gown to find the far softer expanse of skin beneath, and Yen hums her approval as he cups her breast, circling the nipple with his thumb.  
  
Geralt grins down at Jaskier, deliberately stroking more slowly just to see the bard's mouth go slack with pleasure.  
  
"Smooth enough for you now?" he purrs.  
  
"Oh, fu-- _Geralt!_ " Jaskier yelps, panting as his own hands grip Geralt's shoulders almost hard enough to bruise. "No complaints at all in that department," he gasps, "not from me."  
  
Geralt tilts his head at Yennefer, inviting her assessment.  
  
"Nor from me," she says, leaning in to steal a kiss. "Unless, of course, you decide to stop."  
  
***  
  
Whenever Geralt goes off on a hunt, he wears his gloves. Standard, sensible equipment for a Witcher, and much less remarked upon than the swords he wields.  
  
But if underneath that dark leather his nails shimmer with carefully painted runes designed to enhance his Signs, and his palms smell of citrus-soaked roses and spice... well. That's no one's business but Geralt's.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, Jaskier's homemade hand lotion is indeed a real thing that you can try out for yourself! Mix equal parts rose water, lime water (the citrus kind, obvs; don't put calcium hydroxide on your skin, y'all :P), bay rum, and glycerine, rub a few drops into your hands as needed, smell like a soft Witcher. :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Form and Function](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792024) by [thriceandonce (sylvaine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvaine/pseuds/thriceandonce)




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